The present invention is directed to a notebook, and more particularly, to a notebook having tabs received along a bound edge or corner adjacent a bound edge.
Tabs may be used to identify and locate sections of a notebook, binder, or the like. Such tabs may be placed upon sheets or pages, or upon dividers, positioned within a notebook or binder. The tabs may extend beyond the periphery of the dividers or pages, to be more accessible to the user. However, this may expose the tabs to wear and tear, and increase the overall size of the notebook or binder.
Bound notebooks that currently exist and provide sectional dividers with tabs, do so on non-bound edges, and typically protrude beyond the edge of the sheet portion of a content item. In addition, and to point this out specifically, these tabs protrude beyond the edge of the content so they can be seen such that they provide a visible means of identification for the location and purpose of that particular location. (For example, in a 5 subject notebook, the tabs are typically used for identification of different subjects or sections within the notebook, and to provide the benefit of locating and turning to a desired section). As these tabs are protruding, they are exposed to various aspects of abuse or damage resulting from normal use, such as pushing into a backpack, storage locker, briefcase, etc. In some cases, the front and/or rear covers of the notebook are extended to provide some measure of protection for the tabs, but extended covers also partially obstruct the user's view and increase the overall size of the product. Alternately, in some books many of the pages themselves may have cut away portions to reveal divider pages, as in the case of old style dictionaries, where small portions of pages are cut away to reveal letters (“A”, “B”, “C” etc) on divider pages or on the first page of each letter section of the dictionary.
Many notebooks (for example, school notebooks) contain a content sheet of a given size, and some notebooks contain a sheet that can be removed along a pre-perforated line parallel and near the bound edge, and this sheet can be required to be a given size. Because of this, any tab functionality is required to exist beyond the size of the sheet, so as not to interrupt the contiguous size of the sheet. In the dictionary example mentioned above, the cutouts do interrupt the contiguous size of the sheet.
Thus, it may be desired to provide tabs, which are accessible to the user without greatly increasing the overall size of the notebook or binder, and which are better protected from wear and tear.
The notebook disclosed herein provides several advantages. A sectional tab functionality exists within the bounds of the notebook while still providing visibility to the tabs, and full functional benefit of locating and turning to the desired section. The front cover and sheet contents, not the rear cover necessarily, are cut away to provide visibility and functional access to tabs that protrude in this cutaway area. In notebooks that have removable sheet functionality, the removed sheet typically is required to be, or desired to be, of a standard or relevant size, and the sheet as-bound into the notebook is extended along the bound edge to provide space for the binding itself. The feature of this invention exists within the ‘as-bound-in’ sheet size, but outside the ‘removed sheet’ size.